


Leave the Memories Alone

by TheButterflySings



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Leonard Snart is not dead, M/M, Metahuman Leonard Snart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-06-10 18:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6969016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheButterflySings/pseuds/TheButterflySings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't want to see the way it is, as to the way it used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Thoughts of You

2016 felt empty. Central City felt... too warm. Too warm for Mick, which was something that he never thought he'd think of himself. The chill in the air, the lingering hint of being just on the verge of turmoil and destruction... It was gone. But it wasn't a Central City thing, it was a mental thing. It was a Mick thing.

He was running too hot lately. His mind was unbalanced. Everything was sort of a jumble of things he couldn't force into order. Central had never seemed so peaceful, but maybe that was because Mick was used to the edge of danger Leonard had always seemed to be sitting on. Everyone thought that Leonard was careful calm and control, always in complete command of every situation, but Mick had known that wasn't true. Leonard's mind had always been dangerously on the edge of something dark, something uncontrollable.

Everyone thought that Leonard was the control to Mick's instability, but it was mutually inclusive to both.

He didn't have Leonard to keep him balanced now. 

Mick had always hated the cold more than he could have ever explained to others, but now, he missed the chill that was so distinct to his partner. The ice cold skin, the way Leonard's touch chilled him to the bone. They'd balanced each other's temperatures. Leonard always ran cold, Mick always ran hot. Balance.

The cemetery seemed too cheerful for how empty Mick felt. There were flowers blooming around the graves. The trees were blossoming new flowers, pale green leaves. It was springtime. Starting over. Newness. The air felt... clean. Pure. It was all a little too much, and Mick wanted to just turn and get on his motorcycle, go home, drink his cares away.

He'd promised them he'd be here.

The ceremony had taken place two days before where a lot of people pretended to know who Leonard Snart was. Pretended they'd cared more than they had. Half the team hadn't even shown up for it. Neither had Lisa. Mick had, but only because he felt obligated. So had Raymond. Sara hadn't, Rip hadn't, neither had Martin or Jax. He didn't blame them. He hadn't wanted to come, everything about this was so fake.

But they were all showing up today.

Mick approached the grave with a sense of hesitation. Wariness. Sara was there, standing between Stein and Jax in a black dress and black sandals. Her hair was pulled into a side ponytail and curled. She looked beautiful, Mick had always admired that. So had Leonard. Martin and Jax were both in suits, like the one Mick was wearing. Not by choice. Lisa had forced him into it. She was wearing a black dress too, her hair styled similarly to Sara's. They were a lot alike, those two. Rip, Kendra, and Carter arrived moments later, and Ray not long after them. All dressed in the same fashion. All black. Too formal.

"You know," Mick began, breaking the silence that they'd all been standing in for a few minutes after Ray arrived. "I listened to them talking about him at the funeral. It pissed me off. They didn't know him."

"I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who knew Mr. Snart as well as you did, Mr. Rory," Stein replied softly. "I daresay my initial judgement of the man was wrong."

"No it wasn't," Sara chuckled quietly, using one hand to wipe at her eyes. "He was a crook. He was a thief and a criminal and he would have robbed us all blind in a heartbeat. Probably tried, actually. We all knew what he was, and we all knew that he lived by a code. None of us knew how far that code extended."

"Lenny would never let someone on his crew die for him," Lisa mumbled. She wiped her eyes and sniffled quietly. "He wasn't always a good man, but he understood family. In a way that not many people did. He cared about you all, too, I know that."

"Even you, Haircut," Mick added to Raymond, who chuckled humorlessly and kept his eyes focused on the grave in front of him.

"I know he did," the Eagle Scout responded softly. "Maybe not as much as you, or Sara, but yeah. I know he did."

Sighing quietly, Mick knelt at the edge of the grave. Still freshly dug. It smelled like dirt and rain water and other things that came with springtime. He stared at the headstone there. Someone had paid for it, but he didn't know who. Probably Raymond, the man was rich enough.

Leonard's entire life was summarized on that headstone. Date of birth. Date of death. Name. Three words engraved into the ashy gray stone. "Brother. Hero. Friend." Leonard would have hated it, Mick had no doubt. He had never wanted to be a hero, even when he always had been.

"He didn't want to be a hero," Mick muttered, running his fingers along the word etched into the stone. "Hated it. Said heroes were petty do-gooders. The only difference between them and criminals were the titles. He'd hate knowing that's what they're calling him now. But he was always a hero."

Sara and Lisa were crying steadily now. So was Ray. Kendra had tears pricking at her eyes. The others all looked sad and lost. 

"He kept me safe," Lisa forced out. "Raised me."

"Raised me, too, in a lot of ways," Mick sighed. "I coulda been worse. I coulda been a lot worse. He never let me be. He was smarter than me, but he was broken, too. Just didn't show it. Bein' on the team, it helped him, I think."

"What will you do now that he's gone?" Jax asked. "Both of you?"

"I'm going to Opal City. Fresh start," Lisa answered. "I never wanted to stay in Central, but he always did. I didn't realize it until a few years back, but he only wanted to stay here because Mick was here."

Mick looked over at her. He felt like he should have been crying, but he couldn't cry. He hadn't cried in so long. The sting behind his eyes felt unnatural. "I remember... back when we were younger. He never wanted me to meet your dad. He always thought it would be better if I didn't. And then I did. And I had to try so hard not to kill that man on the spot, because no matter what he was still your dad. I always figured that Snart would want out as soon as possible, but he stayed. I coulda left Central City easy. We just never did."

"You two went through a lot for each other," Sara noted softly. She was leaning against Stein and he had an arm around her, and Mick started to realize just how much his partner had come to mean to the entire team.

"We always did. Took bullets for each other. Nearly died for each other. Almost killed each other a few times. Heaven and hell just to stay at each other's backs. I didn't know why, for a long time. Figured he'd gave gotten sick of my shit not long after we met. But he got outta juvie before me, and I figured that was it. I'd never see him again. He was waiting at the door on my release date. Never thought twice about it until a few years later, and I finally asked him, and he just said things felt more complete when I was around. Didn't know what that meant, either. Now I do... Cuz things don't feel complete anymore. I always liked the heat a little too much, needed him to keep me cool. I don't have that now."

"You loved him," Kendra summarized in a very soft voice, and Mick figured if anyone knew anything about love, it would be the one with the four thousand year old soulmate.

"Guess I did," Mick admitted. It was sad, how he could admit that now, with Leonard not being able to hear him, and he'd never been able to say it to his partner's face.

"Lenny knew, Mick," Lisa assured him, reaching out to take Mick's hand in her own. Her fingers were almost as cold as her brother's. For a second, Mick felt calm again. But it wasn't the same. Her hands were too small and smooth, not calloused and scared, with long, thick fingers like her brother's. It wasn't him. "He always knew how you felt about him, that's why he always came back."

"Is there anyway..." Mick began, looking at Rip. He knew the answer, but he had to ask. It was an act of desperation. 

"I'm afraid you already know the answer to that, Mr. Rory," Rip answered. He sounded guilty. He sounded destroyed. He blamed himself, not only for Leonard, but for Laurel. For Carter, the first time. "If I could, I would've gone already. I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't blame yourself. He wouldn't blame you," the pyro told Rip. He was not sure why he said it, but he had to. "It wasn't that he died for you... He died for all of us, and he did it to prove a point. We always knew that our lives would end like this... He'd do it again. I know he would."

"Thank you, Mr. Rory, but that doesn't make me miss him any less."

And that pretty much concluded it. They could stand there for hours exchanging stories about Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs, the criminal who had sacrificed himself to save them all. But it wouldn't make them miss him any less than they did. One by one, they drifted away, until only Lisa and Mick were left. Lisa was still holding onto Mick like life support, and maybe Mick was holding onto her for the same reasons.

"I'll miss him, Mick," Lisa sighed quietly, wiping her eyes one last time.

"I know, kid," Mick replied. "So will I."

And they stood there for a while longer, staring at the grave, at the life that was summarized in a cluster of numbers and a name and three words. It wasn't enough, didn't define the icy criminal and his prerogative, his code and his stupid rules. It didn't tell who the man was, what he did for the world, how he lived. It didn't need to. They'd remember. The people who cared would remember, and that would be enough.

He wasn't gone. Not really. And that gave Mick some level of peace.

A peace that he should have known would never last.


	2. We Had Our Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will we say we had our fun?

Wood houses burned the best. Mick had always known that. Wood caught easily. The flame lept from board to board until it was all consuming, lapping happily at the timber that made the house a home. Mick's family had lived in a wood house. He remembered, but didn't often let himself think about it. 

He wasn't sure what he loved most about watching the fire consume the wood. The way it danced and spread and consumed, wild, untameable, uncontrollable. The way the smoke spiraled in the air before disappearing. The way the lights flickered, burning hotter and hotter . He didn't know. It was all of the above, he thought. A combination of the way it all looked. The way it all felt. 

He used his zippo, because it felt the most solid in his hand. Small, but sturdy. It was plain, silver, scratched and worn. He'd had it... He didn't remember exactly when he got it. He just remembered it was after a heist. He'd lost the one he'd had, it had gotten left behind or something. He didn't know. Leonard had snatched him this one from a one-pump, no security gas station and given it to him about two days after. Mick had made sure he never left that one behind.

That gas station had burned down in a fire three years back. Mick felt that loss personally. He'd never been inside the damn place, but Leonard had gone out of his way more than once to snatch lighters or cigarettes or food from that place. All for Mick and Lisa. He never used any of it himself. 

With the zippo lit, he touched the flame to the wood at the base of the house. The fire would rise steadily and consume the entire three floors of the house as it went. It wasn't like it was going to hurt anybody. The house was so damn old and hadn't been lived in since someone got killed in it six years previously. It was presumed to be haunted. Central City government was on the verge of tearing the damned thing down, anyway. Mick was saving them the money. Real upstanding citizen, wasn't he? He snorted at his own thoughts.

As the flames grabbed at the lumber and started to lick their ways up the sides, Mick took a few steps back. He retreated to where he had parked Leonard's motorcycle and leaned against it, watching. It was a quick process. Soon the flames were leaping merrily back and forth, reducing the home to ash. Mick watched, transfixed, until his trance was broken by a sudden rush of wind behind him.

Turning, Mick raised an eyebrow. Of course. He'd never understood Leonard's fondness for this kid, but it was that fondness that kept Mick from going for the heat gun. Even though he had used his zippo to set the home on fire, he always kept his gun with him. Even if he didn't use it quite as often anymore. He had Leonard's gun, too. "Scarlet," Mick grunted as the kid straightened and made sure his cowl was still in the right place. "You can take that thing off, Barry," Mick added as an afterthought. "And no, Snart didn't tell me who you are. I just figured it out. There's only a few people Snart ever liked. It was process of elimination figuring out who you were from that short list."

Exhaling a sigh, Barry lowered his cowl to expose his face. "I can't let you keep setting houses on fire, Mick. This is the third one this week. And it's Tuesday."

Mick couldn't help but roll his eyes. "What am I hurting? Would you rather I be who I was then? Robbin' places blind? Pickin' fights? Killin' innocents? No one lives here, it ain't hurtin' nobody."

Barry sighed again and looked at the motorcycle Mick was leaning against. Of course, he knew who it really belonged to, and that was what was stopping him from being mean about anything. He handled the situation with kid gloves, which was frankly just pissing Mick off more. He wasn't about to break. He wasn't fragile, or a damned child. He'd lost people before, this wasn't a new thing.

"You wouldn't go back to killing innocent people. You're too loyal to your partner. It would be betraying him to go back on his code now."

"There's not a code to go back on, kid," Mick spat, his voice colder than ice, harder than steel. "Snart's dead."

The words tasted sour in his mouth, like he'd just swallowed something with a terrible, putrid taste. Mick focused his eyes back on the fire consuming the home. It usually calmed the turmoil building in his brain, forced things back into perspective and lowered any anxiety Mick was feeling. It wasn't working now.

"You miss him," Barry protested softly, and Mick grunted a response.

Sure he did. He missed Snart and had since day one, but he wasn't gonna pour out his feelings to the Flash. 

Actually, Mick missed the whole team. He hadn't seen any of them since their makeshift funeral for Len about seven months back. Ray had been in contact a few times. So had Sara. But they all had their own lives to get back to, and Mick wasn't really included in a lot of that. He wondered if the rest were even still alive. He didn't think so much about Carter or Kendra, figured they were doing fine. Stein and Jax, though, they'd been cool. And Lisa was off in Opal, so he didn't even see her. 

"You know, burning houses down isn't gonna bring him back," Barry said, approaching the motorcycle, so he was standing just on the other side of it from Mick. He rested his hand on the seat and looked up into the flames. He should have put it out, but he figured it was the only thing stopping Mick from punching him in the jaw.

"No, but it's gonna stop me from makin' sure a whole group of people join him," Mick responded coolly. The fire wasn't doing much for him. He was feeling things, things he didn't want to feel. He was feeling pain and anger and sadness, things he'd tried to numb himself to over the past seven months. He hadn't handled the death well. At first, he'd tried to go back to robbing things, but he didn't have plans. He couldn't plan like Snart could, and all his jobs failed or got people hurt, so he'd just said no to all of that. Went to burning shit to contain his emotions.

"Look, just... Do what you've got to do to keep yourself under control, Mick. Just don't let it hurt or kill anyone."

"I remember your deal with Cold, kid. You don't gotta worry about me." Mick waved the kid away dismissively, the flames no longer able to hold his attention. He pushed the boy's hand off the motorcycle and swung his leg over it. "I'm trustin' you'll put this out, right?" He motioned to the blaze with a vague hand movement. Grinning humorlessly, he kicked the motorcycle to a start. "See ya around, Red." 

He took off into the night, leaving the Flash with the fire. Saints and Sinners was his bar of choice. Had been Len's too, when the other was still alive. The Rogues had a whole tribute to the leader of the Rogues. They had what looked like an ice shrine over in the corner. It didn't have a picture of him or anything, the Rogues weren't that touchy-feely. But Mick had put the Philadelphia Flyers' Stanley Cup on it, because Leonard had stolen it once, more years back than Mick could count. He looked at the damn thing every night, just to make sure it hadn't been taken. Because Mick had found it while cleaning out Safe House Number Six, where Leonard had apparently stashed it.

He sat at the end of the bar by the Cup and stared at it. Most of the Rogues had left something, something that meant something. It was touching, in a way that he hadn't known the Rogues to ever be. Mick ordered a shot and held it there, in his hand, nursing it for a few long moments. 

"You ever gonna stop coming here and moping over him?" Shawna asked from somewhere behind him. He didn't turn to look at her. 

"Probably not," he admitted with a gruff laugh, tipping the shot back and swallowing it down. It burned a little. He reveled it. "Doesn't matter, does it? What's it to you?"

"He wouldn't want you to, that's all." Mick heard her heels click on the floor as she walked away.

He knew that, too. Leonard probably wouldn't want him to act like this. But it was better than any other way he could have been. It was better than murdering, throwing fits, hurting people. It was the best sense of calm he could force over himself. It wasn't healing, and it wasn't healthy, but nothing he had ever done had been had been healthy.

"Bet I can still drink you under the table," another voice said, and this time, Mick had to turn. He set his empty shot glass on the bar and stared at the sexy blonde standing in front of him. She was in that white leather corset top and those tight pants, and she was wearing that sassy, dark smirk that he'd become so familar with. 

"What are you doin' here?" And then the person with her caught his eyes. As dopey and wide-eyed as ever, like an over-eager puppy. Raymond raised a hand and waved happily.

"Hey, Mick."

"Eagle Scout. Even more surprising to see you in a place like this. What's going on?" Ray and Sara exchanged a glance. Mick ordered another shot from the bartender. He was pertty sure he was going to need it. 

"Well," Raymond began, looking over at the shrine dedicated to Leonard Snart. "Awe, that's sweet. I didn't think the Rogues would be capable of being that sweet."

"Haircut. Focus. What are you guys doing here?"

"We missed you," Raymond responded brightly. "And... we want you to come back to Starling City with us. We have something to show you."

"What do you mean?"

"It's about Snart," Sara answered, taking the shot from Mick before he could. She tipped it back and set the glass down, motioning for Mick to stand up. "Just come with us. We'll explain."

Mick sighed and stood up. He didn't want to get his hopes up about Snart, about whatever these two had found. So he didn't bother to. He just raised his eyebrows and motioned for them to lead the way, presumably to the private plane Raymond had for them to fly back to Starling City on. He stopped in the doorway and glanced over at Ray and then back at the bartender.

"By the way. My tab is on him."


	3. Said I'd Never Let You Fall

He actually had a private jet. Mick shouldn't have been surprised, he expected as much from Raymond Palmer. It was all a little surreal, getting onto the private jet and being offered champagne as he sat down. And that was how Raymond lived day to day? Well, no wonder the man was always as happy as an over-excited human-sized puppy. Mick probably would have been, too, living the lifestyles of the rich and famous. If he'd been offered a different hand for his life, anyway.

It was almost too luxurious, all of it, and Mick wasn't sure what to think. Fancy wasn't really his thing. Yeah, he liked money, he liked fancy stuff, but being around fancy stuff like this just made him uncomfortable, and he didn't want to be around it for too long. 

And this was raising too many questions he didn't know the answers to. What could they be possibly telling him about Snart that they'd need to pull him away from his home and drag him to Starling City? Snart was dead. They'd all gathered around that grave seven months ago and cried together. Well, Mick hadn't cried. Sara and Ray had, though. So what did they want now? The Lazarus Pit that had brought Sara back was destroyed, he remembered her telling him that one night when he'd gotten so drunk and called her purely out of misery, demanding that she do something and get his partner back. He was not particularly fond of that memory.

She hadn't made fun of him for it, though. He was really thankful for that. Probably because she was still going through the same thing over Laurel.

"You better start talking about what's goin' on here or I'm gonna get real angry, real fast," Mick threatened, looking from Ray to Sara with a dark glare. He was already kind of angry, he wanted to know what was going on, but he'd willingly gotten on this jet and was now flying to Starling City, so he couldn't complain too much without it being considered some level of hypocrisy. 

"It's nothing bad," Raymond promised a little too quickly, urging Mick to take a drink of the champagne. Mick refused. It wasn't his type of thing. He prefered whiskey and beer when he drank. Something that would hit hard and fast and burn like fire on the way down. Whiskey was his old friend. Vodka. Seventy proof. That was what he wanted. Probably didn't have anything like that here, though. "It's just... we found... well, it's complicated."

"No, Ray found," Sara corrected. "I had nothing to do with it. He just dragged me with him in case you needed convincing or knocked out to bring back to Starling City with us."

"I could still go three rounds with you, Lance," Mick promised. He had been one of the only ones on the ship who could hold his own with her and actually last three rounds with her. "Don't push it."

"Haven't gone soft in your old age?" Sara teased.

"You wanna go right now?" Mick shot back, and Raymond sighed. 

"Don't get blood on this carpet, it's new," he complained. "Anyway. It's... science stuff that I can explain better when I actually have all the data with me. We'll be back in Starling City soon, and I can show you when we get to the lab. Just relax. I don't think you've done too much of that since... Well. Yeah. Barry told me about the setting fires and everything. That's probably not healthy, I'm just tossing that one out there."

"Hey, Haircut. You talk too much."

Despite the insult, Raymond smiled that same dopey grin of his. Probably couldn't help it. He shrugged and sat down, and sighing, Mick let himself do exactly as the kid had asked. relaxing onto the too soft seats of the jet. It was just Ray and Sara. He felt safe enough letting his guard down around them.

He must've fallen asleep, because he was woken up suddenly by Sara slapping him across the face. "What the hell was that for?" he growled, tensing and preparing himself for a fight.

Sara smiled cheerfully, apparently not phased by the pissed off pyromaniac criminal. "Well, you sure don't wake up as a pretty princess after a little beauty rest. You must be the Beast, huh?"

"Sure am," Mick agreed, rubbing his face. "Raymond over there is the pretty princess. Makes you Gaston. Watch it, or I'll tear you to shreds." Sara's smile only widened, and Mick rolled his eyes. Why did he like these people? "Why'd you hit me?"

"We're here," Raymond answered, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Come on."

Mick stood and stretched, grunting quietly. It had been a fairly nice nap until he'd been beaten awake. Shaking his head, he followed the two out of the jet. They were in Starling City now, at what Mick could only assume was Ray's lab. It was a big lab, judging by the outside. All fancy. The kind of place Mick would probably rob if Leonard was still around. Maybe Ray knew it, because he side-eyed Mick for a moment as he keyed in the pass code at the door.

"Can you please not steal my stuff while you're here? You are an invited guest."

"I'll withhold judgement until I know why I've been invited," came Mick's answer, and Ray sighed, leading the two inside. Probably wasn't what he wanted to hear, but Mick didn't think he wanted to steal any of Raymond's stuff, anyway. Walking into the lab, he wasn't sure he even could.

It was big and shiny and filled with a lot of... stuff. There were computers and stuff, but there was also a lot of science-y stuff that Mick didn't know what was. He assumed Raymond would tell him, but he didn't want to know. He wouldn't remember what any of it did, anyway. He wasn't smart, that was a commonly accepted fact. He was meant to be muscle and security and arson. Not brains. Being somewhere like this just made him feel inferior. It wasn't a place he could ever excel. It was why he'd refused to come work for Palmer Tech when Raymond had offered four months ago. All he would have been good for there was security. Or janitorial staff. Neither appealed to him.

Looking around, Mick frowned. "Why am I here, Boy Scout?"

"Eagle Scout," Raymond corrected. "Like I said, I completed all--"

"Yeah, all of the merit badges, including nuclear science. You know what that tells me? You're a nerd, and I woulda beat the crap outta you when we were kids. It also tells me why you're single, nerd. So we get back to the point. Why am I here?" 

Raymond looked hurt. Mick almost felt bad, but it was so easy to wound Raymond that the guy almost deserved it at this point. "Right. Um. Well. I was bored and didn't have a lot to do around here. I don't actually own this anymore, it's Smoak Technologies and everything, but I was doing some research and Cisco was helping me. He can see into other Earths and actually look at the thread of time. So I got to thinking about it, and there's no way it's not possible that Snart couldn't come back. Other timelines, other Earths. It would just be a matter of finding him."

No. Mick refused to let himself hope. What Ray was saying was impossible. And even in they could find Snart, there was no promise that what they brought back to him would be his partner. He didn't trust this. It was too good to be true, and his mom used to tell him, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." So Mick wasn't going to be all happy and excited about this.

"I thought you'd be happier. Ray's telling you he can bring Leonard back," Sara said.

Mick shook his head, teeth grit. He wanted to be angry at them for telling him this. Because of course he would get his hopes up about it. But he realized that getting angry wouldn't do anything. They just wanted to help. "It's too good. Too much could go wrong. And there's no promise that it would even work. Or that what you brought back would even be Snart."

"I think you should look at what I found." Ray typed at the keyboard for a few moments and stood aside to let Mick take a look. All he saw where a bunch of numbers and a lot of words he didn't understand.

"English, Eagle Scout. What's this mean?"

"When I was looking into this, and I was using a data sequence to find Leonard, our Leonard, a sequence that's completely unique to him, something interested happened. Now, of course you'd expect this sequence to pop up in the past. It had to, since he existed in the past. Even in the future, the timelines we went into together. This sequence wouldn't appear on other Earths because frequencies and such are different on other Earths. And his Earth 2 or 3 or 4 doppleganger wouldn't have any sort of impact on this, even if they were on our Earth, so what I found was even more interesting with that fact taken into account."

"What are you saying, pretty? I don't know what this means."

"This sequence showed up here. In 2016. He's alive, Mick. He's here."


	4. Still Alive, But I'm Barely Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just praying to a god that I don't believe in.

Mick sat in blank silence after Raymond finished speaking. He couldn't find his voice, didn't know what he was supposed to say. It felt... unreal, too good to be true, more than he dared to hope for. Hope was a mistake, it was so easily taken away, it so easily caused pain. So Mick didn't want to hope, didn't want to give anyone that chance to take it away. He didn't think Raymond would give him such a hope and then rip it away, he was too puppy-like and adorable, eager to please, happy, hopeful, optimistic. But, still. Mick was wary.

"He's not alive, Haircut, that's not possible."

"You know, I thought so, too, but I was looking anyway, and then, out of the blue it just popped up. He's here, Mick, he's here, in Starling City, and he's alive. We just--"

"Gotta get him," Sara cut in. "There's not a thousand percent promise he's gonna be completely himself, so we gotta be careful."

"Why didn't he come back to Central City? Why didn't he come home? To me, to Lisa?" Mick growled, turning away. He was frustrated, and he just wanted things to make sense. Nothing made sense. 

No. He wanted Leonard. He wanted his partner at his side, at his back. If Leonard was alive and hadn't come home, hadn't returned to where he belonged... Mick wasn't going to lie. He felt betrayed. Maybe Leonard had decided he didn't want to come back to Central City because he was done with Mick. Maybe he hadn't even died, he'd just... vanished. It would have been so like Leonard to just up and vanish without a word, leaving behind the people who cared, he'd done it before. Done it so many more times than Mick could even count, but he always, always came back. 

Unless he couldn't.

But he could. So why hadn't he?

"Maybe he didn't know what he was coming home to," Sara replied quietly. "He's been gone seven months, Mick, a lot changes. That's over half a year. And a lot of us... we gave you three weeks before you did something that either got you killed or tossed back in Iron Heights."

"Sara!" Ray intervened sharply, and Sara gave him a look that was equally as cold and sharp.

"What? He needs to know what he needs to know, Ray."

"Where is he?" Mick asked, his body tense with anger. They'd all thought him so weak that he wouldn't be able to survive without Leonard. He wasn't sure if he was angry or just depressed by that sad statement on his life. He'd survived, but had he really? It didn't matter. He was going to find his partner, and then he was probably never going to talk to these two again. His life was only more complicated with the hero, do-gooder types in it. 

"He's staying at an abandoned building just on the edge of Starling City for all I can tell," Raymond answered as he started typing at his computer again. "Must have made it his own little safe house. Some things just don't change, huh?"

"Well, I'm gonna go get him," Mick muttered. He turned towards the door and started to walk out, leaving the others standing behind him.

"You can't go alone," Sara objected, and Mick turned, hands curling into fists. He glared at the blonde, and she glared right back, the light in the room making her eyes look like they were almost glowing. She looked like a deadly, dangerous assassin, and Mick should have been afraid. She could handle a fight with him, and she wasn't scared of him like so many people were. But he wasn't scared. He was just angry. Angry... Desperate.

"Yeah? Watch me."

"Mick," Ray sighed, holding his hands up. Trying to placate the pyro criminal, but failing in doing much. "It's not that we think you're incapable of finding Leonard or something. Except that, one, you don't know exactly where he is, and two, no one knows exactly what happened. He could be dangerous."

"I've always been able to take Leonard in a fight," Mick snapped, and he left the building.

Raymond had a point, he didn't know where Leonard was. But it was a simple process of elimination. If he was still the Leonard Mick knew, he'd want the coldest place he possibly could find in Starling. Something out of the way and not suspicious. A place he could run that the cops wouldn't consider. And there were a few fairly out of the way abandoned buildings outside Starling City, but only one seemed like Leonard's style. 

Mick stole a car to get there. Some things just never changed, and above all, Mick was a thief. He could hot wire a car in about thirty seconds and be out of the scene before the cops knew what had happened. That was one thing he hadn't learned from Snart. He'd had to teach the fifteen year old criminal how to hot wire back when they were still sneaking Lisa out of their dad's house every night. 

Mick rolled his eyes as he drove to the building, whipping corners. Driving too fast. For all the things Leonard had taught him, he'd taught the kid just as much. Some things just didn't change. He remembered their childhoods with a sort of fond appreciation. He dropped out of school before Snart did. Came and talked the kid out of staying the entire day. They'd go steal some food, hide out in some abandoned building and eat. Just hang out before Snart had to go back to that jackass father of his.

He didn't want to think about it now. Thinking about it wouldn't change it. Grunting quietly, Mick shook his head and skidded to a stop in front of the building. This building just simply felt colder than every other building he'd passed, and yeah, that felt like Leonard. He got out of the car and walked to the door, looking around.

It was dark, shadowy, with a wintry chill in the air. But there was a couch. Dusty and beaten down, like it'd been dragged in off the street. A magazine was thrown haphazardly on the center seat of the couch, and Mick smiled triumphantly. Screw whatever Haircut had said, he'd found his partner.

And just as he thought this, a man walked around the corner and into the line of sight of the doorway. Still shorter than Mick, but tall. Thin, with wiry muscles. Cool expression, icy eyes. Clad in a tight black sweater and jeans. Mick could see the outline of the muscled frame underneath the sweater, long legs behind his jeans. He was radiating a coolness, a general cool, calm, and collected nature that Mick was so used to.

He took a cautious step forward. "Len?" he asked timidly.

And he became dimly aware of a lot of things all at once. There were actual ice crystals on the ceiling and along the couch. The temperature in the room had dropped about five degrees just since Mick walked in. Leonard was raising his hands, and, Mick realized with shock, there was frost forming along his skin. Creeping up his fingers and palms slowly, covering his skin like crystal. The temperature dropped another three degrees.

Mick raised his hands and held them out, unsure of what was going on. This wasn't-- Leonard wasn't a metahuman, he didn't have-- but it was Leonard. He was confused. This didn't make sense.

Mick didn't feel a lot. He didn't often let his emotions get the best of him. But when his partner spoke, Mick could feel his heart breaking, and he didn't bother to control that. 

"Who the hell are you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow updates, sorry.
> 
> Also, I was considering something. I just need to know if anyone would read it. I'm considering a fanfiction with an original character, that would be Mick's daughter? Love interest would be Ray? Have a whole idea plotted. Let me know.


	5. Sooner Or Later, It's Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just don't want to miss you tonight.

Mick didn't run from fights. Not in a long time. Usually, he didn't have to, he was pretty strong and capable of handling himself. Especially against Leonard Snart. The kid was still, even now, scrawny as hell and Mick could probably kick his ass easy. But he couldn't, he couldn't make himself raise his fists and fight. He was too stunned, too surprised, too confused. This was... but it wasn't. It couldn't be. 

He very narrowly avoided the first blast of ice shot at him. He wasn't sure how. His body must have moved on instinct, because his mind sure as hell didn't give his body permission to do so. But he ducked out of the way and to the left as his mind tried to comprehend what was happening.

Snart was a metahuman. Worse, Snart was a metahuman who didn't remember him. They'd known each other for thirty something goddamn years, and Snart had no clue who the hell he was. That was... well, Mick didn't want to think about what that emotion was. The trying to kill Mick? Well, that wasn't really anything new, but still unsettling. They'd pulled guns on each other more times than Mick could count. No one ever said their relationship wasn't unhealthy at best. 

The next blast of ice, Mick wasn't so lucky. It hit him square in the stomach, knocking all the air right from his lungs. He could feel the ice on his skin. It was like a burn, but not the good kind of burn. That kind of burn that scared him, left him dazed. Not much could phase Mick Rory, but cold and ice, those weren't his things. The ice hit him in the stomach, seeped through his shirt, and started to spread on his skin. He could feel the burn spreading. It didn't stop at the surface. The ice was pouring into him, chilling him inside. It made it harder to breathe, harder to move. He staggered.

It was complete desperation. He didn't have the heat gun with him. He couldn't bring himself to actually fight Leonard, and right now, he wasn't in any condition to fight. He could barely stand; the wall behind him was all that was holding him up. He didn't think he could get to the door and out, make it to his car before Leonard killed him. So he tried to appeal to whatever of his partner might have been left in that body, behind those eyes that always seemed to look right through him. There had to be something. Anything.

"Snart, it's me," he grunts, his hand finding his stomach. Bad idea. The cold hit his hand instantly, ice crystals moving from over the finger tips. With an annoyed sound, Mick jerked his hand away. There was a hint of pain in his voice when he spoke again. "You know me, Snart, you've known me for years. It's Mick."

"I don't know anyone named Mick," Snart spat back, and the way the ice was creeping along his skin was becoming extremely unsettling to Mick. It seemed to have reached his voice, the way Leonard's voice had dropped in tone, a sarcastic, lilting drawl to it. It was so familiar it was almost painful. "Sorry to give you such a cold shoulder--" And Mick couldn't help it, he groaned. That was very, very familiar, the terrible puns. "-- But you're here uninvited."

"Then I'll leave!" Mick growled. "I'll leave." He held his hands up in surrender and backed towards the door. He thought that Leonard would continue to fight, but he didn't. Icy blue eyes watched Mick unblinkingly as Mick backed out the door and stumbled to the car he'd stolen. He had to get back, and he had to get back quick.

The ice was starting to expand inside him, he could feel the coldness spreading. He didn't know if this was just an effect of Snart's new powers, or if it was just to him personally, because of how much he hated the cold. But it was inside of him, and it wasn't good. That was all he knew, and that was all that mattered. He got the engine in the car started as quickly as he could with his hands shaking as bad as they were. And then he was driving back to Palmer Tech. Raymond had been right, however much Mick hated to admit it. He shouldn't have gone alone.

Thirty years, and that was how it ended?

He'd gone back three years before Leonard's death and told the guy how much he meant to him. Mick had laid it all out in a way Mick just didn't do, to make sure Leonard didn't forget what Mick thought of him. And now, not only did Leonard not remember that, he didn't remember anything about their friendship, partnership, whatever the hell they were, at all. Mick felt like burning something. 

Balance. He needed that balance. His mind was a jumbled mess, and he didn't know the best ways to exert any of that emotion that was welling up inside. Leonard would have some way, some logical, smart way to handle it. Mick didn't. Mick wasn't smart, never had been very smart. He followed Leonard mindlessly, always had, let Snart get away with using him sometimes, since he didn't really know any better. He'd trusted Leonard to lead him through Heaven and Hell and everything in between, and now, he wasn't so sure how to go through Heaven and Hell against Leonard. 

He went to Raymond out of instinct. It was the only place in Starling he knew. The only person in Starling he trusted. And if he was being honest, the only person who would have a way to get Snart back to what he was. 

Mick barely made it inside before he collapsed. 

Sara and Raymond were over him in seconds, fussing, demanding to know what had happened. But Mick could barely breathe, let alone talk. Ray was doing... something, Mick wasn't sure what, but he hoped it was going to get that damn ice out of his body, because now he felt cold all over. He was shaking. It was killing him. He was going to die, he was sure of it.

"Mick, babe, look at me," Sara commanded, and Mick smirked. Leonard had been right. She did sound a lot like Lisa. He remembered them talking about it on the Waverider. That memory was floating somewhere dimly in the back of his mind. "Mick!" Sara repeated loudly, and she slapped him, hard, earning a grunt. It didn't do much to focus Mick, but he did look at her then. "What happened?"

Mick grunted, blinking a few times. The lights were getting brighter. He closed his eyes. "It was Snart," he finally managed, and he's pretty sure Raymond and Sara are now staring at him like he's insane. He doesn't open his eyes to check. The cold inside him is starting to burn the closer it gets to his heart, and now, it's almost... almost pleasant. He likes the burn. Reminds him of that fire... That fire where Leonard gave up on him before... Ironic, he thinks, that he's just lost Leonard again, and here he is, again, feeling like he's burning alive. "Snart's a metahuman," Mick continued, and maybe he was going insane, because he exhaled a delirious laugh. He felt hands on him. He wanted to protest. It was like the hospital, after the fire. After both fires. After his parents died, after he almost died.

He'd always hated hospitals. He wanted to fight, but his body was numb. Frozen. He was good at these puns, too. 

".. Don't fade out on me." That was Raymond's voice, he thought, but he wasn't too sure.

Suddenly his eyes opened, and he sat up, despite the hands pushing at him to lay back down. He grabbed Sara's hand and looked her dead in the eye. Because it had finally registered with him that this was serious. This was likely very, very dangerous. "Snart's a metahuman," he repeated clearly. "And he's probably gonna hurt people with those powers he's got now. And I ain't gonna be no help, Sara, cuz he don't remember me." 

And then, like a light, Mick was out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took forever, and it's not even very good, and delirious Mick seems way out of character for me, but I figured with the shock and everything... I don't know. The next chapters will be better. Hopefully.


	6. I'm Hopeless, But Hoping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My lungs won't fail me now...

Mick came around to voices and flashing lights. He was reminded of a hospital. The bed felt about as comfortable as a hospital bed. Groaning, he closed his eyes against the light. He'd been dreaming, he thought. And it was a pleasant dream. The bits and pieces he could remember. He was pretty sure Snart had been in it. Lisa, too. 

Maybe it wasn't a dream, maybe it was a memory. He tried to think of what it had been. Him, Snart, Lisa, a lot younger. In his apartment. He'd had one of those when he was in his early twenties and Leonard was still a teenager trying to get away from his dad. Snart had had bruises, so probably just after a fight with his dad. He'd come over to get away and they'd ended up watching TV together. Didn't help with the specifics any. This happened far too often for Mick to place a specific date. Not that he remembered a lot of specifics anyway, he wasn't good with dates. He was good with numbers in anyway other than dates and times, was real good at math when he tried, but dates weren't his thing. Leonard was good with dates and times. He'd been the most highly requested person to work with in Central City, but his chosen partner had always been Mick, even if Mick was never much of a help.

Groaning to himself, Mick pushed all that aside and opened his eyes again. This time, he opted to sit up and drag his hand across his face in an effort to wake up and remember how he'd gotten where he was. It came back to him slowly, and then all at once when he saw Raymond. The ice. Passing out at Palmer Tech. Snart. Mick felt dizzy again.

"Mick, you're awake," Raymond said, instantly moving to Mick's side. Mick waved him away with one hand.

"Yeah, Haircut, I'm awake. What happened?"

"Well when Sna-- when the ice-- The ice hit you and literally started to freeze you inside. All your organs and blood vessels and tissues. We had to stop it from freezing your heart, or you would have died. We got the ice out with a bit of help from people better at medical care than myself or Sara." He motioned vaguely off to the side, and Mick glanced that way, dimly recognizing the redheaded doctor from Central City, Caitlin or whoever, and Dr. Martin Stein. 

"Professor," Mick grunted. "Good to see you again. Thanks for not lettin' me die."

"I'm glad to see you awake, Mr. Rory, but Ms. Snow did all the work."

Mick sort of nodded towards her. It was awkward as hell. He and Snart had kidnapped her once. One of Snart's plans to try and outwit the Flash. Hadn't worked. And now she hated him. Was still scared of him, if that look she was giving him meant anything. Didn't matter that he was obviously friends with Raymond, Sara, and Stein, all of whom were on her side. 

"Thanks, Doc," he muttered, half-hoping she didn't hear him.

"You'll want to take it easy. Meaning no matter how much you want to see him again, don't go challenging Snart to another fight. Another blast like that would kill you," Caitlin warned him sincerely.

"I don't wanna see him again. He ain't my partner anymore."

This was a blatant lie. Of course Mick wanted to see Leonard again. He half wanted to go beat some sense into the punk kid. Teach him a lesson, even if it meant gettin' blasted with ice again. But he was right, Leonard wasn't his partner anymore.Leonard didn't even know who the hell he was. And Mick wasn't quite so masochistic that he'd go submit himself to that pain again.

"You said he didn't remember you," Raymond prompted, and now everyone was looking at him. Jax was there, too, Mick realized. He was standing with Sara on the other side of the room, watching Mick like he was a ticking timebob or something. 

"He don't," Mick grumbled, pushing the thin blanket that had been covering him out of the way. He was shirtless. He could see where on his body the ice had hit him. It was dark, angry red, contrasting with the rest of his skin. He had a freshly stiched cut, not too long, right over where that initial blast had hit him. He guessed they'd probably cut him open and removed the ice as best as they could. He didn't want to know the details of how they got it out. "Doesn't remember a damn thing about me. If he had, you think he woulda sent ice flyin' at me like that?"

"Since when can Snart go Jack Frost on people?" Jax asked. "Last I knew, he was just an ordinary dude with a gun."

"I have his gun," Mick grunted. 

"Well, the last I, or anyone here, was aware, Mr. Snart was dead," Stein corrected bluntly, and Ray gave him a look that he clearly ignored. Mick's hand twitched into a fist before relaxing again. He wasn't actually wrong. "So how did he go from an ordinary man, who, albeit very skilled in planning and thievery was not supernaturally gifted in anyway, and whom we all gathered around a grave to say goodbye to, to a very much alive metahuman with ice superpowers?"

"We can look into it," Raymond cut in quickly, glancing over at Mick. They were all looking at him like that. Like he was dangerous. Like he was about to explode or something.

Maybe he was. He'd always been probably the most dangerous person on the team, aside from maybe Leonard himself. And the only reason Leonard was ever more dangerous than Mick was because he had all the danger that was Mick Rory ready to dispense at any given moment. Mick was completely unhinged and bordering unstable. He was a loose cannon, a wild card. He only ever listened to Leonard, the only person with any ability to exert any control over him. And now... well, now things had obviously changed. Maybe he was dangerous.

But he didn't feel dangerous. Not at that given moment. He didn't think he was up to fighting anyone. He didn't feel that usual burning anger deep inside. It had been replaced with a sort of lost, sad, emptiness inside. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel. Maybe bitter? Maybe desperate? He just felt alone. 

Raymond and Stein walked away to go, probably, work on figuring out how Snart was alive and a metahuman. Mick would have followed them. He wanted to know, too. But it was going to be a lot of science-y stuff he didn't understand, and that was a headache he didn't need. Plus, the redheaded doctor had told him to take it easy, so he was just gonna lay down and let them figure it out while he figured out the mess in his own mind.

"You okay?" Sara asked as she approached the bed he was laying on, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. 

"Peachy," Mick responded, and both he and Sara managed a smile. It was a knee-jerk reaction after knowing Snart as long as he had. "I ain't touchy-feely, so if you think I'm gonna get all weepy and spill my guts to you, you're gonna be pretty disappointed."

"I didn't expect you to. I just know how it's gotta feel to you right now. You had hope. Now it's gone and you feel worse than you did before. You loved him. And he loved you, too, anyone could've seen that, clear as day."

"You got a point here, assassin?" Mick gritted out, closing his eyes.

"Don't give up on him, Mick. They'll find a way to get his memories back."

"I ain't gettin' my hopes up again, princess, so don't try." He opened his eyes again and looked over at Raymond and the professor. They would try their best, he was sure, to figure out what was going on. It would probably take them too long. Mick snorted to himself. If he was anything like the Snart that Mick had known, he'd have everything he wanted out of Starling City within the week, and he'd be gone before they had a chance to do any of their research. "Maybe instead of tellin' me how we can save my partner, you and me should go stop him from runnin' rampant on Starling City. He may still have his little code, but we don't know that for sure, and with those powers, he's more dangerous now than he ever was."

"You're gonna stop Leonard from hurting innocent people? I thought that was the other way around."

"Yeah, well, Snart ain't Snart anymore, is he? And I ain't me anymore, either. You know it, I haven't been since before Snart died. Call up the Green Arrow. We're probably gonna need his help, too."

Sara gave Mick a long, searching look before finally nodding. "Maybe you're right. They'll probably want to monitor him, anyway. Give me a minute and we can go." 

Mick watched her walk away. Under any other circumstances, things between them might've been different, but he was pretty sure he was somewhere along the lines of "Snartsexual", so no relationship with Sara would've worked. He found himself wishing that he really didn't have to do this, but he forced himself up and found a shirt, tugging it on. The heat gun was, luckily, nearby, since he'd thought to bring it with him when he'd left Central City with Raymond and Sara. He didn't think he'd actually bring himself to use it against Snart, but it would be nice to have it. And, though he was sure he knew how it would go, Mick readied himself to face Snart, yet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Further plot development next chapter. Little bit more action. Cameo from Oliver Queen.


	7. We Don't Have to Like Each Other

Oliver Queen joined Mick and Sara when they went to find Snart yet again. He probably didn’t know that Mick knew who he was-- hence the voice modifier and the fact that he already had his hood on. But even before they’d gone to the future, where everyone was pretty liberal with identities, Mick had known Oliver Queen was the Green Arrow. Leonard had deduced it by some method Mick didn’t know, and Mick had accepted it as fact until it was confirmed to be very true.

He could tell that Oliver didn’t trust him, and that was fine, because he didn’t trust Oliver Queen any farther than he could throw him. And he doubted whether he could throw Oliver Queen very far at all. Though, throw away the bow and the heat gun, and Mick had no doubt he could take Queen in a fight, even with all the training he had. Mick wasn’t a weak man, and he was sure he could figure out Oliver’s weaknesses.

“Mick, are you sure you’re ready to handle this?” Sara asked, ignoring the scoffing look that Oliver threw them both.

Mick held up the heat gun, his thumb on the trigger, as they walked out to the vehicles. Oliver would be taking his motorcycle, with Sara riding behind him on it, and Mick would be taking hers so that he didn’t have to hotwire another car. Oliver apparently frowned on that sort of thing, though Mick was positive he wasn’t so above it himself.

“I’m going to address the elephant in the room,” Oliver began before Mick could answer Sara’s question, and Mick barked out a sarcastic laugh.

“Oh, please do.”

“Sara, since when do you trust Leonard Snart and Mick Rory?” Oliver demanded of the assassin, ignoring the fact that Mick was standing right there, with the heat gun in his hand, ready to shoot. And shooting Queen was so tempting. Mick had to argue himself out of doing it. It was for Snart. He couldn’t shoot Queen, for Snart.

“Since I was thrown onto a timeship with both of them and both of them risked their lives to save my own. You act like you weren’t a criminal once,” Sara retorted, her arms coming up to cross over her chest, a cool glare set on her pretty face. Mick was sure that she could take Queen in a fight, too, and he would have paid all the money in his and Leonard’s conjoined bank accounts to see her do it.

“You don’t gotta help us, playboy,” Mick rasped. “I can handle my partner alone. But I’m willing to bet you’ll get your pretty ‘in-the-thick-of-everything’ ass into it anyway, because you can’t leave well enough alone. Don’t you start judging me or my partner for what we’ve been handed in life, because while your pretty girlfriend was on a timeship, trying to save the whole timeline from a threat you couldn’t eliminate, it wasn’t you that had her back out there. It was me, and Leonard Snart, two people you act like you know so damn well, when you don’t know a thing. You don’t gotta trust me, but don’t you act like you weren’t on my level once upon a time. I just didn’t have a rich mom to bail me out of it.”

Mick could feel Oliver bristling to respond back, saw Oliver’s hand twitch towards the bow on his back. And instinctively, he raised the heat gun as a response. Being a criminal wasn’t so easy to get out of his system when people tested his patience so fully. Sara stepped between them and forced the heat gun down, before turning and glaring at Oliver.

“You were the bad guy once, remember? So was he. People change. You don’t have to trust him, but you could do me a favor and trust me.”

Oliver and Sara stared each other down, and over Sara’s shoulder, Mick glared. Finally, Oliver exhaled a sigh and turned to his motorcycle, throwing one leg over it. “I’ll always question your taste in men, Sara Lance.”

“I’m not dating him,” Sara scoffed, sliding onto the motorcycle behind him. “Mick has a partner, and it’s not me. And what do you mean? I dated you.”

“That’s my point.”

Rolling his eyes, Mick mounted Sara’s motorcycle. “Think you can keep up, Queen?” he said sarcastically to the other man, starting the motorcycle and listening to the roar of the engine. If Oliver was surprised by the use of his name, he didn’t show it. He just started the engine and revved it.

“Just ride.”

And so Mick did, through the streets of Starling City easily. It was late, not a lot of traffic, and dark enough that the headlights on the motorcycles were the only illumination they had. Still, Mick found his way back to the place where he’d confronted his friend easily enough, only one wrong turn the whole way, which he was sure Queen wasn’t going to let him live down. They stopped down the end of the street, the motorcycles too much of a giveaway that something was about to happen. 

Before they approached the house, Mick threw out his arm to hold them both back. “Look. I know you two can handle yourselves. Whatever. I’m giving you a warning. I don’t know what’s happenin’ in his mind right now, and I don’t know if it’s healthy. If he didn’t recognize me, I’m damn sure he doesn’t play for our side. He’s dangerous. He’s got all the smarts he always did, but now he’s got those powers, too. You don’t trust me, Oliver Queen. That’s fine. But listen when I say, he’s not someone you should underestimate going into a fight with.” 

Oliver stared Mick down, and Mick stared right back, unblinking. He was dead serious. Too many people made the mistake of vastly underestimating Leonard Snart, Mick included. He didn’t think letting Oliver go in there without a clear understanding of what could happen qualified as taking the moral high ground. And he did have a code.

“I don’t underestimate him. And I’m not going in alone,” Oliver finally replied, determination in his voice. “Come on.”

Together they approached the house, but before they came upon it, a blast of ice forced them apart. Spinning around to catch his bearings after jumping to the side, because one ice blast had been one too many, Mick reached instinctively for the heat gun and raised it. To his left, Sara and Oliver readied their own weapons. 

“Leonard, don’t do this,” Sara warned.

“I don’t know how you know me, but the fact that you and your friends have weapons pointed at me doesn’t make me think we’re on the same side,” Leonard scoffed. Ice veins stretched out on the sidewalk from where Leonard was standing. By his sides, clouds, like breath on a cold night, drifted off his hands. His black sweater was coated in a thin layer of frost. It was traveling up to his face. He looked deadly.

“I pointed a gun at you on a weekly basis and we’ve slept together,” Mick retorted, the heat gun barely shaking in his grip. “But you don’t remember that, do you?”

He could see Leonard hesitate. But not nearly enough. Another ice blast came Mick’s way, and he jumped backwards. It caught the tip of his boot and immediately seeped through it. Mick swore loudly and pulled the trigger of the heat gun. He didn’t think he hit, but it caused Leonard to step backwards quickly.

“I don’t think the ‘talking it out’ approach is working,” Oliver called to Mick, an arrow knocked on the string and ready to fly.

“Then stop talking and fight!” Mick roared back, and Oliver nodded, for once on the same page.

The three stood together and readied to attack.


	8. Old Days and Old Flames

The three of them together were barely enough to stop the newly superpowered Leonard Snart. The fucker was quick and good at getting out of the way. He avoided arrows like he’d been doing it all his life-- and he hadn’t, because Mick had known the kid most of his life, and he was holding his own with his ice powers against the heat gun. When Sara ran forward to attack hand to hand, the slightest touch froze her hand, frost and ice covering the skin. Sara staggered back, holding her hand to her chest.

“Pro tip! Don’t touch Frosty!” Sara said after a particularly spectacular backflip out of the way, clenching and unclenching her fists to regain some feeling in the frozen hand. “I’m not gonna be much of a fighter if we can’t go hand to hand. Sorry, guys.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mick replied. “Get back and try to get some feeling back in your hand. We’ll handle this.”

He caught Oliver’s eye and knew that, somehow, they were on the same page with this. Oliver retreated to higher ground, leaving Mick to keep Leonard entertained on the ground. Bracing himself and raising his gun, Mick prepared to fight.

“You say we slept together,” Leonard began in that snarky voice that Mick knew so well. “Were you really that unmemorable?”

Mick laughed humorlessly. It would have been funny under any other circumstance. Because this /sounded/ like Leonard. He acted, he looked, so much like Mick’s partner. He had that snarkiness and sass that Mick hated, but that Mick had also loved for as long as he could remember.

“Probably not, since you always seemed to want more. Kept coming back, even when you swore you were done with me. But that’s how our partnership worked. Thirty something years, Lenny.”

Something flickered in Leonard’s eyes, something like uncertainty. Mick hoped that maybe, maybe, he was getting through to the other man. Maybe he was starting to remember. His hands dropped a fraction of an inch, and it was almost enough to make Mick hope.

“Who are you?” Leonard breathed, staring at Mick like he was trying to place a face that he didn’t quite remember, but knew, somehow that he knew.

“My name is Michael Rory. Everyone always called me Mick, cuz I didn’t wanna be Mike. Cuz that’s my dad’s name, and I hate my dad. We met in juvie, remember?” Mick prompted, trying to get something. Anything. “I saved you then.. And you been saving me since. You were-- something happened to you, Lenny, somethin’ not really good... And it gave you these powers, but it took away your memories. Must be a lot of your memories gone, cuz I’ve known you since you were fourteen. You’re tellin’ me that nothing else is a blank spot?”

“I woke up here… six months ago,” Leonard responded slowly. The ice around him was starting to fade. “I don’t remember anything before that. Anything except… my sister, Lisa. And my name. And… someone… who helped take care of us both when my dad--”

“That was me, Len. I hated your dad just as much as I hated mine. Cuz he was an abusive piece of shit. If I didn’t know you, how would I know about your dad? Lewis Snart and his A+ parenting. Come on, I know you remember me.”

“My dad was a criminal,” Leonard added carefully, like he wasn’t sure of the words. “And so am I.”

“You were a criminal,” Sara corrected from somewhere behind Mick, and Mick swore silently to himself. In an instant, the walls that had been starting to fall were back up. Leonard was tensed again, and, almost automatically, he was firing ice at the assassin again. Mick had been stirring something inside of the criminal, maybe making him remember something. But Sara speaking had shattered that.

Mick moved quicker than he’d ever known himself to, putting himself between Sara and the ice. It hit him on the arm, spreading from his shoulder to his elbow. It burned like fire, only not as pleasantly. Mick’s arm dropped, and he wasn’t sure if he had the ability to raise it anymore. Luckily, it wasn’t his gun arm. He spun around and pulled the trigger again, scorching the air, nearly hitting Leonard with the fire. As far as he could tell, he’d managed to catch the man’s hand, but not much more. Burnt the tips of his fingers at the most.

“The sassy little doctor’s gonna kick my ass for this,” Mick grumbled to himself as he made his way back to where Sara was crouching behind the motorcycles.

“Are you okay?” Sara demanded, moving closer to him. She had no reason to ask, she probably wasn't any better off than he was. Caitlin was going to kill them both, Leonard Snart be damned. She was the one Mick was really scared of. He waved Sara off with his good hand, which ended up being a vague motion of his gun.

“Guess I am,” Mick replied. “I almost had him.” He stood back up and pulled the trigger of his gun again. Before the fire had even hit, an arrow came flying from a building behind Leonard, implanting itself into the ground at his feet. Leonard spun around and fired ice at the building where Oliver Queen had been only seconds before.

Taking the opportunity, Mick stormed forward, gun raised. He gave Leonard one strong hit across the back of the head, and the man crumpled, falling to the ground. He was unconscious, and Mick got a moment of instant gratification. It was about time he got to use that one on Snart. Turnabout was fair play. The ice that had been surrounding the man he’d once called his partner faded away, and Mick exhaled a small sigh of relief, turning to watch Oliver Queen zipline back to the ground in front of him.

“Thought you didn’t miss,” he scoffed.

“I didn’t want to kill him,” Oliver retorted. “What do we do with him?”

“I’ll call Ray,” Sara answered. “I think S.T.A.R. Labs will want to take a look at this.”

She walked away, pulling her cell phone from the pocket of her White Canary leather pants. Mick frowned down at his partner, lowering his gun to his side with a small sigh. As much as he wanted his partner back, he wasn’t sure he wanted the good doctors poking and prodding Leonard like some sort of science project.

This was going to be a trying experience. Mick wasn’t sure he was ready.


End file.
